CHAPTER XI.

THE ONLY REFUGE.

FOR a season Rodney's mind was clouded and bewildered. It is probable that if he had been in ordinary health and strength, he could not have held to his resolution to keep within the walls, which were his only defence from overpowering temptation. But though his craving often amounted to intense agony, the weakness which was the result of his long and dangerous illness made him incapable of much exertion, and the little labour he was put to completely exhausted his powers. Day after day passed by, the hours dragging along heavily. In the midst of the miserable poor who peopled the place, he lived alone, in a kind of dreary lethargy of body and soul, which rendered him almost unconscious of what was going on around him.

Gradually, however, the cloud which drunkenness had brought across his mind melted away, and his thoughts and memories grew clear. All his past life lay behind him, mapped out plainly and distinctly; his early manhood, his strength of muscle and nerve, his marriage, his children, and last of all his little Nelly,—all sacrificed, all destroyed, all lost, by his fatal obedience to the sin which had possessed him. It had come to this, that he who should have been a happy and useful man, respected and beloved, was a pauper, eating the begrudged bread of a workhouse table. He had been acting out the story told centuries ago by the Lord of truth and wisdom. He had left the Father's house and wandered into a far country, where a sore famine had arisen; and behold! he was eating the husks which the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. That was his condition.

It was a long time before Rodney went any farther than that. Broken-hearted and cast down in spirit, he thought he must resign himself to abide in his miserable condition. An importunate remorse was gnawing in his conscience, and he said to himself, it was only just that he should be left without hope, and without God, in a world where he had brought all his misery upon himself. At this time, little Nelly was always in his thoughts, the puny, pale little child, puny and pale through his vice, hungry often, crying often, seldom merry and light-hearted as other children are, yet always patient and fond of him, always ready to be glad if he only smiled upon her. Oh! What a wretch he had been!

How often, too—his memory was vivid in recalling it—how often, when he had received any money, had he resolved to hasten home with it that Nelly's wants might be supplied, and those accursed gin-palaces had been strewn so thickly in his path that when he had reached home, it had been penniless, but raging mad with drink, striking the quiet, patient little creature if she only came in his way!

But one morning, so early that it was still an hour or two before the paupers left their pauper beds, a whisper seemed to come to his troubled conscience, partly, as it were, in a dream, which said to his awakening ears,—

"I will arise, and go to my Father."

He repeated the words over and over again. Had that poor prodigal son, living amongst swine, and eating of their husks, still a right to call any good and great being his Father? Still, it was he who had said it, without hesitation, as it seemed, in saying the word, Father: Christ, the Son of God, who knew all things, and could make no mistake, was He who had told the story. The miserable prodigal, who had spent every penny in riotous living, just as he had done, when he came to himself, had said, "I will arise, and go to my Father." Was it possible he could do the same?

Day after day Rodney pondered this question over in his heart. Long ago he had known that Jesus Christ had come to seek and to save those who were lost; and now, if he would only suffer himself to be found by Him, if he would only receive Christ and His love, He would give, even to him, the power to become one of the sons of God. Oh! If Christ would but find him! down there in his deep degradation and despair! Had He never known a drunkard like him! If He had not when He was a man on earth, He knew them now, by hundreds and thousands, in the streets of Christian cities; His pure eyes beheld them in all their vileness, in their desecrated homes, and in the gin-palaces thickly studding the streets.

The day dawn that was breaking upon his soul grew stronger and stronger, until the shadows fled away. There was neither drink nor the temptation to drink to make it dim, or to quench it. He could think now. He could repent, pray, and believe. Reason and faith could work within him, and there was no subtle foe to steal away his senses. The hour came at last, when from his inmost soul, drunkard though he had been, though his wife and little Nelly had perished through his sin, he could look up to God, and cry, "Father!"